By Busra Akin Dincer
LONDON (AA) – A cross-party group of British lawmakers said in a report published Wednesday the U.K. lacked allies and strategy in Syria.
In a document published by the House of Commons Defence Committee, lawmakers compared current military actions in Syria to the country’s operations in Iraq.
“The difference between airstrikes carried out in Iraq and those carried out in Syria highlight the difficulty of operating in Syria,” the report claimed.
According to the report, since December there have been just 65 British airstrikes in Syria, compared to 550 in Iraq.
Lieutenant General Mark Carleton-Smith, Deputy Chief of Defence Staff at the Ministry of Defence, said in the report the difference in Syria was that British forces in Iraq had been “supporting the sovereign entity and a unitary military command against a reasonably clearly identifiable military threat”.
Those “advantages” did not exist in Syria, he added.
Wednesday’s report said the coalition’s reliance on local partners to simultaneously carry out ground operations and political reforms had raised concerns in terms of both pace and effectiveness.
Dominic Wilson, Director of Operational Policy at the Ministry of Defence, underlined a lack of coherent strategy.
“The military campaign is being successful, but arguably the politics and the stabilization effort more generally are lagging some way behind,” he stated in the report.
Richard Atwood, International Crisis Group Director of Multilateral Affairs said “military operations should be slowed to give a chance for the political strategy to catch up”.
The report has said the disparity between military effort and that on stabilization was "concerning" and urged the British government to set out exactly “how it intends to help ensure that political reform is achieved and what action it is planning to take to keep it in step with the military campaign”.